The Aspiring Archivist

I am so tired.

Was it all a misstep of mine, an error?

Was there anything I could have done to avoid it?

I can't rest, and I can't work.

So I'll just sit here, waiting...

For something. For what?

For something to change, somehow?

For my mental health to improve?

For it all to end?

There is at once too little time and an infinity of waiting.

The feeling of falling sideways, faster and faster, never slowing down, without control, without seeing ahead.

Knowing that you bound to hit something, a wall, at the end of the line.

And a deeper fear of never stopping or slowing down, never hitting that wall.

Those weren't really my words, but I felt like they applied.

A handhold, a moment of refuge, not slipping away but kicking down as a punishment for ever believing.

A moment of paralysis, waiting for something to burst though it never does.

It just retreats, giving no reason for why it ever came.

So impossibly difficult to last five days.

I can't.